


Snapshots

by rosecat13



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 15:25:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecat13/pseuds/rosecat13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An exploration of Carlos/Cecil/Rookie through snapshots taken from Rookie's eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PinkFringedFury](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkFringedFury/gifts).



> Based on original headcanon by PinkFringedFury/@dmerlizzle, 
> 
> Cecil/Carlos/Rookie based on @actual_cecil, @NightValeSciFi, @NVSSP_Rookie. Quality twitter rp!

He always seemed to catch the scientist at the right time. There were plenty of photos of the Latin man through slats, the faded, black curtains of his windows. Many black-and-white snapshots of a man with perfect hair, rumpled lab coat, and unpolished shoes. They did not capture the way he smelled, the way he walked, the very essence of his being. Except for Rookie’s. He caught the man mid-pour as chemicals mixed in test tubes, the black rims of the man’s glasses tilted down so the world could see hazel eyes untainted by the warping of glass. In autumn there was a picture where the sun’s glow found a halo of dust around his head, golden sunlight streaking across black and silver hair. A look of determination, or brows furrowed, there was something there that felt professional, but not posed. The pictures the man took with his eyes were raw and it was hard to think that he had blinked his way into Carlos’s past in the form of documentation.

Perhaps it was because they were close, because Carlos had stopped flinching away when Rookie’s shoulder passed by his, barely there. There was a snapshot of the scientist’s hands folded on a desk from bird’s eye view; Rookie can remember the feel of his chin against Carlos’s hair, and after blinking, sliding his hands to fit over the brown ones, and holding them there. His tough black gloves looked menacing against the soft mocha, and he blinked again. Look, here, he had captured him, look at how much he trusted him, he allowed Rookie to surround him and in the evening air there was only silence and the soft heat that spread from their bodies to intermingle, gently, gliding.

The tang of “Carlos” had never surpassed the silvery sound of “Citizen”. but “Voice” soon turned to “Cecil” once he was welcomed in. There were many pictures then, of liplocked Latin and radioman, you could see the curls of smiles spreading from their lips, crisp and highlighted in a light that must have come from Rookie’s eyes. The glow of fireworks on New Year’s, air cold and the smell of lightning in the air, crackling. It felt like it was going to snow and the two were clothed in heavy cable-knit sweaters and ridiculous hats, and the pictures go kiss, kiss, kiss, laugh, kiss. Their noses touching, Cecil’s flushed pink with cold and Carlos’s stubble nearly silver-tipped at the edges from frost beginning to settle; but it never snowed in Night Vale.

Honesty lined the edges of his vision and he caught himself in the mirror sometimes, all strength and sinew. He started looking on purpose and tried not to blink, attempting not to show that perhaps he was developing vanity, or something deeper. And then there were the pictures of the others entering the frame and Cecil shyly burying his nose into Rookie’s strong neck, because his reflection scared him, more than anyone’s ever should. And three clicks later Carlos had his hands on a sheet and covered the glass up, fabric billowing and settling, and then the mirror was a dark blue canvas that reflected nothing but empty light. Blurred shots of Cecil’s face in a sheepish smile; violet eyes, slender fingers. When they kissed the camera could see the cells of his cheek, dip of his brow, and the tender touch of affections.

Then pictures became sparse and they were worth more then, as Rookie began to close his eyes and settle into two sets of arms; a place he hadn’t known he belonged. And there was the warmth of the sunset streaming into the slats of the blinds, the refraction of dusk in test tubes, and there were more pictures of his eyes wide shut, in the touch of black linens they wrapped around his vision. Mornings just for them, where there was a stumbling blindman who after days, and weeks, and months became comfortable pouring cereal and milk without having to look at the world, taking in the sounds of feet on linoleum and felt the press of lips on his cheek. Rookie learned to turn and catch them before they left, and was rewarded with more, and more, and sometimes he’d turn into the stumbling man again as the morning digressed back into night as he was laid back onto the bed, sheets soft and still-warm from sleep. His ears did not record the moans that arced into the warm spring air.

They were recorded. All the pictures stowed away, beauty shut up in some clearly labelled file, and some accessed them, and laughed at the snaps, and then paused, when they found the stills of Cecil bare in the bathroom, ethereal in morning light, or Carlos with fingers threaded through his own hair, sleep deprived and in naught but a lab coat, leaning against one of his desks as the shadows of night and stark whites of moon caught and snagged on his hair and hands. Rookie was a professional; nothing was vulgar, everything was art. No one captured the two as he did, and when he blinked, and saw smiles, and lips; the whispers and secret words only reached his ears, and the three were beyond reach, if for only a moment.

 


End file.
